by Zach Smith | Dec 10, 2016 | Care, Flowering, Hawthorn, Sweetgum
Fall in the Deep South is an iffy affair. When we do get fall, it typically comes and goes in short order. This year we actually got perfect conditions for a nice season of color, a lengthy drought that ended around Thanksgiving. In the past couple of weeks we’ve seen our trees in the landscape produce nice yellows, reds and purples. Then the rains came, and those colorful leaves have been falling quickly. The gray, somber winter is just about upon us.
For the bonsai artist who loves deciduous trees, winter is actually a good time of year. The well-ramified trees get to show off their development. Those trees still in development get to show off where they are in the process, plus what they still lack. All in all, I love deciduous bonsai in winter. Here are a couple of nice examples.
This is my Riverflat hawthorn, Crataegus opaca, that I’ve been working on for five years now. You can see the state of ramification this tree has achieved. The final step in developing this bonsai is going to occur in the crown, which has come along very well over the past couple of years. I’m confident that by the end of the 2017 growing season, this tree will be “finished.”
This Sweetgum forest, Liquidambar styraciflua, was put together in 2015. In just two growing seasons, it’s reached a pretty nice stage of development. With the leaves just about off all of the trees, it’s much easier to see the state of development of the individual trees. This is important to any forest composition. While it might seem easiest to grow a forest as simply a mass of foliage, this will never fly with deciduous species. Winter will always rat you out. So today I was able to get “inside” the forest and do some strategic pruning. Each of the trees in this forest has its own structure, which I’m developing over time. It’s only going to take one more growing season to get this forest to the point where constant pinching will finish the development.
I’d love to hear of any experiences you might want to share with regard to your deciduous bonsai in winter. Just leave a comment below.
by Zach Smith | Nov 13, 2016 | Care, Flowering, Hawthorn
There are four sources of material for bonsai – collected trees, trees from seed, trees from cuttings, and trees from air or ground layers. Today I want to show you how to use two of these methods to make more bonsai material.
I made this Riverflat hawthorn, Crataegus opaca, from a cutting struck in 2015. Riverflat hawthorn is one of my favorite species for bonsai. I’ve collected quite a few specimens from the wild, and they are fast to develop for bonsai from just a bare trunk. They generally feature good surface rootage as well, so this is another positive quality.
Propagating the species from cuttings has proven to be harder than I would have expected. But last year I did manage to get one – exactly one – to take. It puttered along through the growing season, during which time I left it strictly alone. I was just happy to have succeeded.
Well, 2016 was another story for this rather small and nondescript new tree-in-the-making. I would estimate the cutting was 8-10″ long when I struck it, and it grew only a bit in 2015. But now, at the end of the 2016 growing season, the thing is six feet in length! And the trunk base, which was about 1/8″ when struck, has swelled to 1″ in a single growing season.
This is pretty exciting, and I’m encouraged to grow a lot more of this species from the ground up. I’ll strike more cuttings next year and see what I can do that way, but as I watched this specimen grow in 2016 it occurred to me that it was presenting itself as a prime candidate for air-layering. What’s even better, I can make not one but four layers on this single plant. So with a little luck I’ll make five trees from one.
Here’s a closeup view of the tree, with the layer points identified. You can also see where I plan to cut low on the trunk, in order to continue developing the parent plant.
I’ll keep you posted in 2017 as I prepare the layers, and then we’ll follow along to see how well that method works with this species.
Have you had any experience with layering? I’ve done some personally, but not as much as I think I’ll be doing in the future. Leave a comment below regarding your experiences, good or bad.
by Zach Smith | Oct 9, 2016 | Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Ficus, Flowering, Hawthorn, Potting, Pruning, Styling, Wiring
Sunday morning musings
I love big bonsai. I’ve loved big bonsai since I first got really into the art, and became aware that bonsai could range up to four feet tall. I’ve collected and trained my share of big bonsai. And whenever Cathy is explaining to someone that very odd thing I do, she invariably says I grow “giant” bonsai.
So with that introduction there’s an obvious question to be asked: Can there be big happiness in small packages? The answer is yes (wouldn’t be much of a blog post if the answer was no, right?).
Over the past 25+ years I’ve collected somewhere on the order of 1,500 trees. For the most part these were trees sporting trunks of 2″ basal diameter and up. Yet there’s so much more to bonsai. Through the years I’ve done a good bit of propagation, and I really enjoy it. Whether it’s from seed or cuttings or layers, making new plants gives me a real sense of accomplishment. You might call it big happiness in a small package.
Here’s a prime example of a really insignificant piece of material, a Green island ficus, Ficus microcarpa. I just made this “small package” about eight weeks ago from a much larger bonsai owned by one of our local club members. His tree has produced countless clones for club members over the years. I took a small shoot he trimmed off his tree, dusted it with rooting powder and stuck it in a pot filled with sand. It faithfully produced roots in just over a week, at which time I potted it in a gallon nursery container. I fed and watered it, then waited for it to start growing. It’s quadrupled in mass since then, and a couple weeks ago I carefully pulled it from its nursery container and put it into this nice Chuck Iker round. My plan is to bring it indoors this winter, then next spring grow it bigger still (making more small ones along the way). In time I should have a nice indoor bonsai, as the tree “grows into” the pot. But I’ll tell you, this small ficus brings me a huge amount of pleasure – big happiness, as it were.
Here’s another small package I wrote about in a blog some time ago, a Chinese elm, Ulmus parvifolia. This is another bonsai that started out life as a cutting. In this case, rather than grow the tree on in a larger nursery container or the ground, I potted it straight into a bonsai pot and began its training. Six years later, the tree had developed into a miniaturized Chinese elm with a relatively small trunk. But it developed tons of character along the way. Small package, big happiness. I sent it off to a new home this year, where I know it’s brought a lot of joy.
Here’s an example of big happiness in a really small package. I grew this tiny Water-elm, Planera aquatica, from a cutting I made last year. The cutting wasn’t the normal straight whip most commonly used for propagating by this technique, so it had a ready-made branch structure. Today I put it in this very small hand-made pot. It stands a mere 5.5″ above the soil surface. Does it look like a real tree in nature? You be the judge, but to my old eyes the answer is most definitely.
Oh, just so you can get an idea of the relative size of this “big happiness”….
Bonsai is one of the most unique pastimes there is. When you consider the variety of species, styles and range of expression in the art; the flowers and fruit of certain species; the vision and diligent care of the artist; the quiet character of the miniature tree through the seasons; from the tiniest shohins to the grandest imperial size bonsai, it’s hard to find a more pleasing pursuit.
by Zach Smith | Aug 27, 2016 | Care, Flowering, Hawthorn, Styling, Wiring
As you develop your raw material or bonsai-in-training into masterpieces (or just great specimens), you need to know certain techniques that will give you faster results. Among these are techniques to create or improve trunk and branch taper.
Here’s a wonderful species for bonsai, Parsley-leaf hawthorn, Crataegus marshallii, which I have just started to work with this year. As I have written before, this is a species I had wanted to work with for my entire bonsai career of almost 30 years, but I never had the opportunity. That changed this year, thanks to a good bonsai friend who took me to a collecting spot.
I direct-potted this specimen into a nice Chuck Iker round. The trunk is just over 1.5″ in diameter, it has great character and movement, and all I needed to do was to create a branch structure and develop a suitable crown. Sure, it’s a 5-year project but so what? Who would turn down a great bonsai in 5 years?
The photo at left is from May 26th. This specimen got off to a slow start in spring, for reasons unknown (you may wonder if it’s because I went straight to a bonsai pot with it; for newly collected trees, I find they typically put on a good round of vigorous growth in the early stages of recovery that can mitigate this problem). But it eventually had sufficient growth on it that I could start the styling process.
Here’s the tree after its first wiring. Not a bad structure, for starters. The real challenge will be in creating the crown of the tree. I’ve wired up a new leader, which needs to run, and next year the original trunk will be chopped near where the new leader emerges. But that’s only one factor in creating this future bonsai.
Here’s the tree as of August 26th. The new leader has grown about three feet in length, and thickened pretty nicely. There’s been good growth of the branches, though certainly not even growth. That left-hand branch looks pretty rangy, right? Well, there’s more to the story than there appears to be at first blush. Let’s take a closer look.
So this explains that very long branch you see in the photo above. In the closeup, you can see the tree threw a secondary branch at about the second internode and that this branch was strategically growing more or less straight up. This simple fact meant the branch was going to be stronger than those I wired and positioned horizontally. But there was another benefit to this. If you study the two branches in the photo that lie on opposite sides of the trunk, you’ll see that the one featuring the upward-pointing secondary branch is about twice as thick as its counterpart. This is a key development technique when we’re growing the branch structure of our trees. Not only do the branches need to ultimately be from one-quarter to one-half the thickness of the trunk from the point at which they emerge, they also need to exhibit taper just as the trunk does. When we’re first wiring out the new branch structure on a tree being developed from a bare trunk, the shoots are naturally slender. We let them grow out and then cut back, and in time this process produces taper. But there is a faster way to induce taper, and that is illustrated by this example. Sometimes your new branch will throw a shoot straight up that’s near enough to the base that it can speed the process along. This is exactly what’s happening with this parsley hawthorn branch.
An obvious question at this point is, What do I do about the other branches that don’t feature a secondary branch pointing straight up? You have to use the other techniques available to you. This means you let those branches grow out farther before cutting back. You can also wire the very tips of those branches upward, which enhances the growth rate. Regardless of which you do, over time you’ll need to balance growth among the branches in order to make your bonsai look realistic. This is a chore no one escapes, but frankly I think it’s one of the attractions of growing bonsai. Seeing (and making) the development take place over time is just wonderful – and I recommend keeping a photo record of your trees, which is not only very illuminating but also instructive.
by Zach Smith | Jun 11, 2016 | Care, Chinese Elm, Flowering, Hawthorn, Pruning, Styling, Wiring
You may be like me and become enthralled by very large bonsai that are designed well. There’s something about the big ones! But if you’ve spent any time working with smaller trees, you’ve no doubt come to understand that just because they’re small doesn’t mean they’re a snap to style. Perhaps the main reason for this is the simple lack of branches to work with, along with the length of the trunk itself. You see, with less to work with you have a lot more to accomplish in a short distance. With a large bonsai being three or even four feet tall, that’s a lot of distance to display trunk taper, movement and character. And usually you’ll have 10 to 20 branches to shape and achieve ramification with. Contrast that with small bonsai, those under 12″ in height. A lot has to happen in those 12 inches. As for branches, you may have a handful only. So creating a “tree impression” becomes much more difficult.
Remember this Chinese elm, Ulmus parvifolia, from last year? It’s a mere 7.5″ from soil to apex. My goal from the start with this little guy was to make it look like a real tree. I had worked on it for years, and while it was okay it needed a serious design inspiration. So I cut half of the tree off! So now, there’s character in the short trunk and a nice tree form in just a handful of branches. Mission accomplished.
Here’s a small Parsley hawthorn, Crataegus marshallii, collected in February. You can see where I cut what was a lengthy section of trunk from the main area (I used it for cuttings). Now a shoot has emerged from near the chop. If I don’t go ahead and wire it, it’s going to become too stiff to do anything with. Ultimately, this small piece of material could make a nice shohin bonsai. But as I noted above, this will only be possible if I can make a lot happen in a very short distance.
This is the likely front view of the tree, by the way.
And here we are, after a single piece of wire and a little shaping of the shoot. I also took off most of the old existing branch that was soaring off toward the sky. A neat branch to be sure, old and with good character, but it was long and untapering and useless for my intended design (which at this point is just an intuitive impression; I’ll know more about it later on). Now it’s time to wait some more, and let the piece grow on out while ignoring it. For a point of reference, the trunk base is 3/4″ in diameter. The chop is at 4″ along the trunk.
For those of you who like smaller bonsai, let me know what you think.
by Zach Smith | May 27, 2016 | Care, Flowering, Hawthorn, Oaks, Privet, Pruning, Styling, Wiring
With spring growth soon to give way to summer growth or doldrums, depending on the species, today it was time to work on a few trees. The first was this Chinese privet, Ligustrum sinense, that I collected this past winter. It got an initial styling last month, and it’s now grown out sufficiently to get a trimming.
This work goes quickly. All that’s really necessary is to take your shears and trim everything that points up or down (unless you’re leaving a shoot pointing upward to thicken a branch), and then to shape the branch into a rounded triangular form. In the case of this tree, it only took about five minutes.
My second victim was this Parsley-leaf hawthorn, Crataegus marshallii. This tree has grown a little slowly for my taste, but I know it’s because I potted the bare trunk directly into this nice Chuck Iker round. Patience has paid off, though. Today I had a few nice shoots and a leader I could work with.
I only had a few lengths of wire to put on this tree, so the work was done in about 10 minutes total which included trimming away what I knew I wasn’t going to need.
It’s a little hard to see in this photo, but I need to chop the trunk again near the new leader. This is not the time to perform this step, as the tree is not yet sufficiently rooted to stand that sort of manhandling. Not to mention the fact that cutting in the vicinity of the small shoot I wired upright would be risky. I’ll let it continue to grow out, which should thicken it nicely by this coming fall. Then next spring I can whack away.
Last but not least is my late friend Allen Gautreau’s live oak, Quercus virginiana. I really like posting this photo because it helps dispel the idea that live oaks are slow-growing trees. This is absolutely not the case. Once a live oak gets established, it can put on several feet of growth in a single season. Here you can see I’ve got some shoots approaching two feet. Not too shabby, eh?
An established bonsai requires more care when you’re giving it a haircut than trees still in development. Unless you’re restyling the tree, you must take time to selectively remove new growth that has no business being part of your finished work. So you want to look for crossing branches, branches growing toward the middle of the tree, and of course those that point straight up or down. In about 10 minutes I was able to clean up the appearance of this fine old bonsai.
